Sword Art Online: Journey of Two
by CommanderFlynn
Summary: When siblings Flynn Silvers and Karin Silvers end up in the death game of Sword Art Online, the two band together in an effort to break free of their virtual prison. Both unique in their own way, the bond between them will only strengthen...or will it? Follows the Anime episodes and possibly some original stuff afterwards. T for now but may or may not be bumped up.
1. Prologue

**Sword Art Online: The journey of two.**

VRMMORPG's were still a new concept that was being broken into. The actual idea that you could live, breath and move within a virtual reality had always existed since those early Sci-fi type films like _Star Trek's _Holodeck but only now has it truly been possible to recreate. People were exited at the idea. It would raise the bar for gamers everywhere and even threatening to end the home/family consoles out of existence.

So when the official news broke that the FullDrive System was officially ready for use, along with the first game teaser only know as _Sword Art Online_. Online forums exploded as they all guessed and gathered any and all information on what the first game would be like. Would it be a medieval fantasy game? Something similar to _Final Fantasy_ perhaps?

When popular streaming channel _MMO Stream _managed to secure an exclusive interview with the lead developer Kayaba Akihiko it was then that it was announced that they would be having an exclusive beta testing period for one month starting from 1st August 2022 and ending in September. Only one thousand testers were approved but no NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) was implemented, so testers were free to tell everyone about their experience. Out of the thousand testers, ninety-five per cent had pre-ordered the game.

When the game was officially available to purchase, online sales had sold out within seconds with gamers lining up for days to get the first few hard copies of the game.

The Servers would start up at 1pm on November 6th where a new way to game would be fully realised.

* * *

This is really something I'm doing on a whim - I've loved the SaO anime (and in the process of tracking down the Light Novels to read) and found that it really had a great thing that OC characters could jump in and be JUST as epic in there own little way like Kirito and his Dual Skill.  
_**So to disclose: I do NOT own SAO or any of the property - it's owners of their respective parties, OC characters will all be owned by me UNLESS stated otherwise. **_

I'm also using the Wiki to help with some of the background information concerning skills and such and the story will follow on to the events within the anime and beyond (if it gains popularity and such, we'll see)


	2. Chapter 1: New Beginnings

**Chapter 1: New beginnings**

"I'm home!" A young adult woman shouted as she struggled to get through the door with the multitude of bags she had acquired while shopping about previously. Various foods and drink occupied the bags, mostly small snacks and fizzy drinks but enough food to fill in the cupboards. She let out a grateful sigh when she placed the bags on the kitchen table and stretched her back, placing her hands on them to help with it. Her black hair was sticking out at odd ends and her fringe was sticking to her forehead due to the amount of sweat she had accumulated. She dipped into one of the larger carrier bags and pulled out one of the two brown bags that had the snacks and drinks in them and placed it on one of the chairs before grabbing a black marker pen and writing on the bag: _Karin Silvers. _She then pulled out the other bag of similar items and wrote on: _Flynn Silvers._

The sound of rapid footsteps coming down on the carpeted stairs behind her signalled that her brother had heard her and had raced down to greet her. She turned around, her deep hazel eyes glaring at Flynn. "You could have helped with the shopping you know." She glared at the young man, his goofy auburn coloured hair a mess.

Flynn chuckled light-heartedly and shrugged, "And miss the opening of the SAO servers because I was out shopping? Besides, I had to install the Nerve Gears onto my computer." He held up a finger and smiled.

Karin let out a defeated sigh and threw his bag of treats at him. "YOU'RE welcome as well. I took the liberty of getting us some snacks and drink as well. Knowing you, and how much I enjoyed myself during the beta we'll be at it for some time." She picked up her own bag and glanced at the clock. It read 12:55am.

Flynn looked inside and pulled out one of the green bottles. _"Mountain Dew_, you really do know your brother that well don't you?" He joked and placed it back inside. "Come on, I'll get you set up." He jogged back up the stairs, leaving Karin to her own thoughts.

When she had received the beta invite, she was hesitant at the prospect of testing something that Flynn was so heavily into. She herself had never really been big in MMO's, preferring the solitude of a single player RPG. She had heard a lot about Sword Art since her usual spot on the streaming channel had occasionally over-lapped her own with SAO news, (until someone managed to find out she had gotten a beta invite and no-one else had gotten one.) It was mostly through peer pressure (Flynn was supportive but never forced her) that she put on the Nerve Gear and started her beta journey in the immersive world.

She slowly walked up the stairs with her own bag of treats, before stopping and placing them on the stairs and walking into the front room. It was a basic room with chairs to one side of the room and a large plasma TV at the other. A single table sat in the middle of the room with a large navy blue rug underneath it. A doorway next to the chairs led to the kitchen. Various pictures hung around the room, most noticeably many of her and Flynn during their childhood years. She bent down and flicked the plug socket off to save some of the electric while they were busy and quickly ran up the stairs with her goodies.

She walked into her room and placed the bag of snacks next to her mini-fridge and opened it up, placing some of the cans and sweets inside before closing it and sliding the bag next to the unit and regarded her brother. "You do know I could set it up myself right?" She then looked at her bed for a moment and raised an eyebrow. "Have you done something to my room?" She quickly did a double take at the purple themed room. The purple wall papers with their various posters of anime and gaming icons still remained, along with her wardrobe and units, but something about her bed seemed different.

"I had some of the guys deliver some memory foam mattresses for us. It should reduce any back pains and such we might get if we play for too long." Flynn explained while typing up something on her computer. The Nerve Gear sat on her pillow…almost perfectly on top of it as if it was carefully placed onto it. "Never thought working in a furniture shop would come in handy. Discounts are officially awesome" He stood up and patted her on the shoulder. "Now before I head off, are you sure you want to use real world names as our alias? Don't want to be Princess Stabbity or something?"

Karin shook her head. "I know it's against the unwritten rules of MMO's but then it feels like I'm outright lying. Besides, no-one has to know it's a real world name. We can think of something now before we head online if it's too uncomfortable for you?" She sat down on the edge of the bed and eyed the digital clock that hung at the topmost shelf on her bookcase. It read 12:58

Flynn chuckled and waved a dismissive hand. "I don't mind. Flynn isn't a common name online anyway so at least I can be somewhat unique. I usually just add in a _Commander_ anyway." He walked towards her door, opened it and smiled before looking back at her. "See you in a moment, sis" He added on before leaving and closing the door behind him.

Karin sighed and reached over for one of her hair bands and pulled her hair to one side and wrapped it up into a crude ponytail. There was nothing worse than having your hair in a mess after wearing a heavy helmet and lying down on a bed for hours at a time. Satisfied that the ponytail would hold she looked over at the helmet for a moment and felt a strange feeling of unease. It was probably her nerves kicking into overdrive again but they weren't nerves from the unknown; she was relishing the chance to fully make an impact on something for once. She lifted the helmet up and placed it firmly on her head before lying back and letting out a shaky sigh and glanced up at the clock. 13:01.

"Better late than never" She muttered to herself and closed her eyes. "Link Start!"

A burst of noise filled her ears as the System started up its long cycle of its diagnostics checks. Touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell. After the system was satisfied with the checks, a blue window popped up asking for the language. Karin quickly selected English and moved on, logging in using an interface by her mind. She was honestly still surprised at how well it worked, considering that it was all controlled through her mind. She waited patiently till the system accepted her log in before another window popped up.

_You have beta test information is still available, would you like to use it?  
Y/N?_

_I don't see why not… _Karin mused to herself and selected the Y option. Her breath suddenly left her as the white void dissipated after a short moment, placing her in the large plaza that she recognised as the ‹‹Town of Beginning››. A small smile crept up as she quickly examined her Avatar. Her dark violet clothing style was still in-tact (albeit she was disappointed to be in Newbie gear). Her black hair was slightly longer than her IRL (In Real Life) appearance; coming down to the small of her back. All around her people were constantly appearing in a circle of bright blue light. It had only just occurred to her that A) Flynn didn't tell her what he was going to look like and B) he had no idea what she looked like. "Another mistake on my part I guess." She muttered to herself and decided to look around.

Everything felt like it was so real; it was hard to believe that all of this was just a video game world. The feeling that she had felt when she first stepped into this world during the beta test was still there, that sense of awe and wonder at the huge undertaking by the developers. Her boots clapped against the pavement with each step she took, her clothes ruffled underneath the leather quality armour she had on and her sword occasionally tapped against her side.

Her sword was a welcome weight. She placed a hand around the grip and took it out, feeling that nostalgic grip that she had missed during the weeks leading up to the full release of Sword Art Online. That said, she was never a sword type of person. She had preferred her Spears. If anyone had asked her why, she would reply with her fascination to the various images of Dragoon's many RPG's have come up with: Leaping into battle with their spears from above. She had hoped that the game would give her the same sort of ability to finally live her favourite job class, but she never did raise her spear skill that high.

She broke herself from her train of thought and decided that a good idea to start off was to check her inventory, she hadn't heard of any beta perks but it couldn't hurt to check. She made a Karate chop pose with her right hand and slid it down a little, the main menu interface for SaO appearing with the motion. She then pressed upon the inventory screen and waited till a screen showing a plain figure and a number of empty spots showed up. The plain figure already had items dotted around it, denoting the armour and weapon she currently had equipped. A little bar at the bottom of the screen red: _1,500 Col. _"Huh…I guess we get some perks after all." She muttered to herself before closing the menu with a swipe of her hand. She glanced at the time and guessed that with the absence of her brother, he was still messing around in the character creation screen. She started to make a beeline for the weapons vendor, walking past a group of players that were already planning to go out into the field to do some levelling up and another group discussing who would use what weapon skill.

The town felt so alive and full of energy that it even put her own town to shame in that regard but above all else she was amazed at how well people were interacting with another. She was no expert in the societies surrounding MMO games but she knew that a large base of them often had a strong cult like devotion to it. She wouldn't be surprised if she started gushing about the game. She moved past someone near a weapons vendor and quickly got to work browsing the equipment.

**VVVV**

"Jeez you're only half an hour late Flynn, not like I had nothing to do!" Karin scolded her younger brother in the middle of the plaza, attracting a couple of starts from the nearby people who were conversing in their groups.

Flynn waved a dismissive hand like he usually did and grinned. "Oh come on, could you really blame me? Their character customisation is really extensive." He commented and stretched out. He had gone for a similar look to himself, but looked more mature and…heroic than Karin had thought he would go with. "Besides, you must have had something to do right?"

Karin smiled a little and went into her menu and selected the Friends/Guild option and moved her finger to the Party sub-menu and then Create, before inviting Flynn into the party.

Flynn jumped a little when a window popped up in-front of him, asking him if wished to join her party in which he hastily accepted. "Thanks, so what's the plan of action then Leader?" He joked, a small grin tugging at the corner of his lips as Karin scowled at him.

"Well first I'm going to get you into practise with the game," She held up a finger as he opened his mouth to respond. "Yes I'm aware you've read the manual, but reading how to play, watching how to play is different to actually playing the game." She smiled. "We'll head to the western fields first where you got the level 1 boars and go from there." She turned around and started to lead the way, turning her head to look at her brother side-long. "If you behave I might give you a present too."

**VVVV**

Flynn side stepped the boar as it charged at him, laughing a little at how easily he had moved. Karin watched from a distance, sitting down watched patiently, her legs crossed and back against a tree as she waited for her brother to actually hit the boar using a sword skill. "You are going to hit it some point today right? I'd like to have something to eat before we starve to death."

Flynn looked over to her sister and scowled. "I'm figuring it out! Just another few more minutes!" He narrowly avoided a second charged and swiped at its hind, cutting it a little. A thin red line drew on its hindquarters and the boar's HP meter decreased a little. "Remind me how to use Sword skills again."

Karin sighed and stood up, going into her inventory and selecting the equipment menu and equipped her beginner sword. Her spear near the tree she was resting against disappeared as the sword materialised in her hand. "It's simple really. You perform the initial movement input for the skill and then, you let it explode." She explained, putting her sword up beside her, pointing it at the boar. "You'll feel the energy kinda build…when the initial movement is picked up, the system does the rest." She continued as her sword started to glow a bright hazel and almost a second later had burst across the plains and past the boar. She turned to face Flynn and smiled. "See?"

Flynn looked at her and then at the boar who was now on its side, a deep red gash through the side of its midsection. It disappeared in a burst of polygons and a small window popped up, rewarding the two with a small amount of EXP and Col. "I see…so, it's all about the initial movement…" He muttered to himself and eyed a boar that had just respawned. He brought his own blade up in the same motion as Karin and gasped as his blade took on a forest green aura. Flynn barely had any time to register the colour as he sped across the plain and past the boar, feeling the impact of his blade cutting through the animal like it were nothing. He skidded to a halt and glanced behind him just in time to see the boar disappear. "Oh yeah! I'm awesome!" Flynn shouted and fist pumped, doing a small victory dance.

"Oh dear," Karin muttered and shook her head. She had forgotten that Flynn could get hyper sometimes. "At any rate you've got the hang of it, shall we keep going?" She indicated to the rest of the wide open plain, sprawling with various monsters and goodies for them to find.

[5:28 PM]

Karin sighed as she took a bite from the bread and then handed it over to Flynn. "I gotta say if I didn't know better, you've played the beta secretly behind my back." She chuckled a little and looked over at the sunset that was rapidly disappearing behind the hills in the distance.

Flynn smiled a little. "Naw, I'm just a quick learner. Besides its fun hanging out with you," He looked over to her and nodded. "Didn't know you were so much fun."

Karin didn't reply, but hung her head. She knew what he meant by that. The two of them were always working opposite shifts at their work-place, so finding time to hang out and just be siblings together was minimal and hard. They often spoke when they passed each other when one was leaving and the other just got in, and during dinner. She often regretted her choice not to fight the decision to stick her on a different shift to her brother. It was really only thanks to this game that they had decided to get together and have some quality family time. She looked up and held up a hand to her brother. "Well here's to more fun with family eh? Who knows, we might be able to get a guild going."

Flynn nodded. "Yeah, that'd be fun. What about work though?" He glanced over to her sister and high fived her. "Ah, what the hell, we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

Karin giggled. "Yep. If anything we can just play on the weekends together and try to get some time in during the week." She leant back and continued to look at the sunset. Only in a VRMMO would she ever see something like this. Once more she found herself amazed at how beautiful it looked despite just being a bunch of floating numbers and graphics. "I could easily just live in here and just…escape reality."

Flynn shook his head in agreement. "I know what you mean. All of our dreams and fantasies could easily be lived out in here." He moved his fingers together and opened his menu and navigated to his skill list. "If only we had more skills."

Karin looked over to him and smiled. "Didn't you hear? Rumour is that the game has a limitless number of skills like fishing, blacksmithery, combat and such." She scanned through the ones that she currently had access too. ‹‹Hiding›› seemed like a very useful one in PvP (Player vs Player) and the occasional PvE (Player vs Environment) scenario. The same she could say for ‹‹Detection››.

Flynn sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, I'm hoping for some sort of throwing skill," He glanced over to his sister who was shooting him a questionative look. "What? You of all people should know I prefer my range combat, I'm surprised there isn't anything of the sort in SaO."

"Just invest your time in blade throwing and one handed stuff. I'm sure something will pop up for you. After all, we don't have access to EVERY skill right of the bat. You may have to train them both up before something comes up." Karin explained and dismissed the menu with a smile. "Well, we've been going for a few hours, how about some dinner?"

Flynn smiled. "You can keep going if you want. I'll make dinner. Didn't you want to meet up with a few of the beta testers you've met?" He stood up and stretched. "It'll be pizza though…I'm feeling lazy."

Karin laughed and brought up a hand to muffle herself. "Right, totally not because you want to play some more." She waved her brother away with a hand. "Go and bring us pizza my dear boy, I'll come off in half an hour."

Flynn chuckled half-heartedly and opened up his menu and then froze. "Karin…the logout button is meant to be on the main menu right?"

Karin looked up to him and nodded. "Yeah, they haven't made any UI modifications as far as I'm aware." Curious, she opened her own menu and navigated to where the log out button 'should' be; only a blank window remained. "Huh…I guess it's a bit of a bug. It's kinda expected to have a few even with a beta test and such." She explained and pressed the help button to call a GM (Game Moderator). "I've just sent out a call for help to a GM, he should be able to log you out."

Flynn nodded. "Yeah, but it's strange. You'd think that a major issue such as being unable to log out would be sorted before they launched." He glanced over to his sister.

Karin shrugged and stood up. "These things happen. We may as well continue leveli-" she started but was quickly interrupted as her peripheral vision turned to white before it completely turned in a bright glow, forcing her to close her eyes. When the airy and light headed feeling subsided, she opened them only to glance around at the plaza of the Town of beginning.

"What…" She glanced around just in time to see Flynn appear next to her. "We've been teleported back to the plaza," she said before Flynn said a word. "And it seems like so has the other nine-thousand and ninety eight players." She added on, examining the large plaza.

People were constantly teleporting into the plaza, more often than not, looking around in a confused daze. Not only that, but the entire plaza was covered in a darkened red overhead. Ominous clouds hung in the sky. "What's going on Karin?" Flynn replied, walking over to her.

"I don't know…it was a forced teleport to the plaza, but usually we get a warning before hand." Karin felt a pit in her stomach again and attempted to log out, only for the action to fail as the button was still missing. Was this the uneasy feeling she had before she put on the Nerve Gear? Something flashed above her in the corner of her eye. One of the hexigons that made up the skybox has turned red, reading: _WARNING – SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT._

"Oh hey," Flynn looked up, noticing the message too. "Maybe this is about the glitch with the log out button."

Karin wanted to believe him but the entire tone was not one of a general announcement. This felt something bigger, something more ominous than just a glitch. Why the darkened skies? She watched as the message spread across the entire skybox, hexagon by hexagon, making the area even more ominous that she would have liked. Then something started to drip from the lines between each shape, something that was deep crimson and thick. It started to drip and then flow freely, floating high above all the players and forming into a deep red cloak, adorned with golden trimmings around the edges of a hood that held nothing but darkness. Everything was setting off the wrong bells in her head, the kind of bells that no-one wanted to ring.

"Is that a GM?" "He's kinda creepy looking." "Why doesn't he have a name?" "Is this an event?"

Flynn walked next to her sister and glanced at the floating figure. He caught her expression and crossed his arms. "I'm guessing you're thinking on the same thing I am." He looked at her with a pair of serious eyes. "Something isn't right here."

"_**Attention players, Welcome to my world, the world of Sword Art Online" **_The loud voice echoed around them, booming loudly in their ears, extending his arms in greeting.

_His world? _Karin thought to herself. What did he mean by that? Is this really just some sort of event that had the creepiness factor timed by a hundred? "They could have at least made it less creepy…not all of us watch and play horror games."

"_**My name is Kayaba Akihiko and as of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world." **_The robed figured continued, ignoring the murmurs of the various players below him.

"I really don't like where this is going…" Flynn muttered, his hand somehow finding his sisters and gripped it tightly.

Karin nodded in agreement – she remembered that Kayaba was the one who had developed the Nerve Gear along with the lead designing director for SaO. It was entirely possible that he would get executive admin privileges over normal GM's.

"_**You may have already noticed, that the logout button is missing from the main menu interface. This is NOT a defect in the game… I repeat, this is NOT a defect in the game. It is a unique feature of Sword Art Online" **_He waved his hand in the usual fashion to open the main menu as if trying to log out himself.

Karin's heart skipped a beat. "Did…I hear that right?" She asked Flynn, looking over to him with shock.

"That it isn't a defect?" Flynn continued to look up at the robed figure. "Yeah, you heard that right."

More murmurs erupted within the plaza, many players shouting out at Kayaba to quit the joke and to let them log out. "Quit joking around man!" "Yeah! I got to get some food!" "What about Mom?"

"_**You cannot log out of SAO yourselves and no-one on the outside can shut down or remove the Nerve Gear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter within the Nerve Gear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain and thus ending your life." **_

This time the murmurs were slightly more panicked. "Come on, enough of this joke already."

"That's it." One player adorned in Orange complained and grabbed a girl who was with him, "I'm leaving." He dragged her towards the plaza's exit but stopped when his face smashed into something. An invisible wall rippled when his face came into contact with it. "Hey, I can't get out!" He shouted loudly to everyone.

_Idiot! _Karin glanced over the faces that she could see, they were starting to turn into those of fear. _Keep calm…remember what father taught you. _Right now, her brain was coming up to a blank despite her father's militaristic discipline.

"Thought Sis?" Flynn broke her from her thoughts. "Does what he say have any credence?"

Karin turned her memory back to the instruction manual of the NerveGear; her eidetic memory kicking in. "Theoretically. The transmitter signal works just like microwaves. If the safety function were disabled then it would overload the brain with signals and fry it into oblivion."

Flynn sighed and shook his head. "Jeez, you have such a way with words. Could we cut the power or disconnect it from the power source?"

Karin shook his head, "Nope. At least thirty per cent of the NerveGear is the internal battery. We'd be stuck in here for at least ten hours." She pointed over to the figure. "I suggest we just let Kayaba explain everything."

"_**Unfortunately, several player's friends and families have ignored this warning and removed the NerveGear. Due to their actions, two hundred and thirteen players are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world."**_

"Okay…this is nuts" Karin muttered and brought up a hand to her forehead. "Two hundred and thirteen is pretty much mass genocide."

"_**As you can see, news organisations across the world are reporting all of this, including the deaths." **_Several windows opened up around Kayaba, each one opening a different news report relating to the news. No sound was played, but the bold titles made it all clear.

**NERVEGEAR KILLS COUPLE**

**CHILDREN KILLED BY UNSAFE TECHNOLOGY**

**MULTIPLE VICTIMS IN ONLINE GAME INCIDENT. **

Karin watched each window but paused on one which showed a portrait of two teens and froze. She recognised the brown haired male as her boyfriend who she had promised to meet up with later. She brought up a hand to suppress a scream and shook her head. "This can't be real…" She muttered through her hands.

"Karin…" Flynn placed a hand on her shoulder and patted her hand. "I'm sorry about the loss, but I need you here and now."

Karin nodded and wiped away a tear. She could mourn later in private. Right now, she had to stay focused on what was going on.

"_**You can now rest assured, that the NerveGear being removed prematurely is now minimal. I hope you will relax and attempt to clear the game. But I want you to remember clearly: Any method to revive someone within the game is now removed, I repeat, there is NO method to revive someone."**_

_No way to revive… _Karin shook her head. If this was all true…then this was no longer a video game for entertainment, it was a death game. Films like _Battle Royale _and _The Hunger Games_, once only stories and films, now existed.

"_**If your HP drops to Zero, your avatar will be lost forever and simultaneously, the NerveGear will destroy your brain." **_Kayaba spoke ominously.

Silence crept over the plaza at the information started to sink into everyone's mind. No-one was complaining that this was still a joke or an event, but a real life thing that was happening to ten thousand players across the world.

"_**However, there is but one means of escape. To complete the game. Presently, you are on the lowest floor of Aincrad, the first floor. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the boss there, you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on floor one hundred and you will clear the game." **_

Karin gasped and shook her head. That was impossible! The one thousand beta testers that participated only reached the eighth floor and that took a month. Who was to say that the difficult wasn't going to be harder now that they had ten thousand people to play with?

Players around her agreed, voicing their concern at how impossible it was. It was common knowledge that the game was hard and within the MMO crowd, it was hot news that a game was not fully cleared during the beta. (Testers often rushed through to reach the end game content).

"_**Finally, I've added a present from me to your item storage; I would appreciate it if you took a look at it now."**_

"Present?" Flynn spoke up and navigated his menu to his item storage, his finger stopping when he reached there. "Mirror?" He selected it and a small hand mirror appeared in his hand, reflecting his face. He had only glanced at it for a moment when he heard Karin scream next to him, engulfed in a bright blue light. "Karin!" He reached out for her but the light surrounded him as well.

When the light dissipated he looked around wondering what was going on and then looked over to Karin. "K-Karin?"

Karin blinked a few times and looked over to her brother. His heroic like stance and figure was gone, replaced by his real life look. She reached back to her hair and found that it had shrunk to the pony-tail she had when she put on the NerveGear. "W-What?"

"Doesn't the NerveGear have some sort of scanning tech in it?" Flynn asked, checking his hair, it wasn't as anime inspired as he had selected it, and he was shorter too.

Karin sorted out her thoughts and nodded. "Yeah, it covers the entire head with a high density signalling device so that's where the face comes from. As for the body and height…the calibration data…remember when we had to calibrate it and patted ourselves all over the place? They probably pulled all that from the data stored in the NerveGear's memory." Karin was about to continue, but Kayaba spoke up.

"_**Right now, you must be thinking, Why? Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of both SAO and the NerveGear do this? I shall be honest. The goal of this has already been achieved. SAO was created for one reason, to create this world and then to intervene with it and now, it is complete."**_

Karin's fist clenched tighter as she glanced at the robed Kayaba. Did that reason REALLY justify trapping ten thousand people in a death game and causing mass genocide?

"_**And with that, this ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online launch. Good luck Players." **_Kayaba started to fade from view, like he was glitching out of the system. His robe becoming pixelated in places as a red mist floated up towards the warning messages, dissipating through the cracks and then in a split second, it was sunset again, an uneasy silence hanging over the plaza.

Everyone just stood rooted to the spot, unsure on what to make of it all. Was this real? Was this an elaborate hoax set up by Kayaba himself? Karin shook her head. No, this was a real thing. The way Kayaba had spoken to everyone; no-one would go through so much trouble to set up a hoax.

Someone within the crowd of Nine thousand, seven hundred and eighty seven must have finally processed all of the information, as an ear splitting scream sounded out. As if on cue, everyone broke into a panic, wanting out of this nightmare that they had walked into. Others just started into space, the information and shock still processing everything.

Karin looked around and noted that the barrier had lifted, the weird transparency fading from view. She grabbed her brother's hand. "Come on," she didn't wait for an invitation; she pulled him out of the crowd and into one of the darkened alleyways. She noted that someone else, a dark-haired boy had done the same with someone wearing a red bandana in the distance.

"So what's the plan?" Flynn asked, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his stomach.

"As much as I hate to say it, we're going to have to be selfish and out level everyone quickly." She opened up the map for the first floor. "The nearest hunting fields will be swarmed with players and all the resources are not infinite all the time. Only x amount of enemies will be spawned at any one time until the recourse automatically respawn every so often." An arrow appeared at the starting town and moved through a series of pathways. "It'd be a good idea to move along to the next area and start levelling up there. As long as we're careful, we should manage." Karin explained as the arrow reached its destination.

"You really believe all of this then?" Flynn asked her with a worried glance.

Karin nodded. "Yeah… but we'll manage. After all, dad was in the army and he wanted us to follow in his footsteps…as long as we remember what he taught us we should be fine." She smiled. "I promise we won't be too selfish, but to help the others we have to help ourselves and to do that we have to get out there and get some exp and items ready for the dungeon boss fight."

Flynn looked over to his sister uncertainly then nodded and held out a hand. "Let's get going then."

Karin took the hand and gripped it firmly. "Right."

* * *

Well - I'm hoping this is well and is going to go well, I'm thinking one chapter per anime episode and possibly more for those ransom fillers we often see n animes. Till next time!


End file.
